


Fire Flakes

by harleydaenerys



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Explicit Language, Ozai’s A+ Parenting, The Gaang - Freeform, Toph and Zuko are siblings, Zuko’s Scar, obligatory “gaang finds out about zukos scar” fic, sokka and zuko are bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:55:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24502744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harleydaenerys/pseuds/harleydaenerys
Summary: Post “The Ember Island Players”Toph doesn’t know that Zuko had a scar. Group therapy and bonding ensues.orObligatory “gaang finds out how zuko got his scar” fic
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko
Comments: 39
Kudos: 1363





	Fire Flakes

“I did tell you guys the Ember Island Players suck though, right?” Zuko wasn’t usually one to say ‘I told you so,’ but with the rest of Team Avatar still processing the Fire Nation propaganda they’d just witnessed, he couldn’t help himself.  
“Meh, they weren’t that bad,” Sokka replied through a mouthful of fire flakes he’d stolen on the way out. “I mean, they did have some good jokes.”  
“They were your jokes,” Suki nudged Sokka playfully. “You’re welcome for getting you backstage, by the way.”  
Aside from a mumbled “thanks, Suki,” the rest of the gaang was silent. Zuko couldn’t help but think they were overreacting a bit. Sure, their characters had been overacted caricatures of themselves, but none of them were particularly on the nose. That is, except for Zuko’s character. The more he thought about it, the more Zuko surmised his character was far too accurate for his liking. His obsession with honor and finding the avatar, his constant berating of his uncle, it was all too precise, and Zuko could tell the others were thinking the same thing as him, as his was the only character who had yet to be made fun of.  
“I definitely don’t look like a girl though, right?” Aang asked, snapping Zuko out of his thoughts. “Like, I don’t have that feminine of a figure! I’m just--”  
“Tiny? Cute? Ladylike?” Sokka supplied, receiving another, albeit much less friendly, nudge from Suki.  
“Don’t listen to him Aang,” Suki offered Aang a comforting smile. “He’s just mad that all his guy talked about was being hungry.”  
“You know what, Suki? He was bad, and then I gave him some notes, and some constructive criticism, and he came back stronger then ever. I think he did great.”  
Suki raised an eyebrow. “Are you seriously defending a fire nation actor?”  
Realizing the error of his ways, Sokka jumped on the defense. “Well, at least my guy wasn’t that bad! At least- at least he- at least he didn’t put the scar on the wrong side!!”  
Before Zuko could comment, Toph interrupted. “That reminds me, Sparky. I didn’t know you had a scar.”  
Now that was surprising. Nearly half the fire nation had seen it happen, so Zuko always figured the whole world knew about his scar. He knew Toph was blind, obviously, but he also knew she grew up in a royal family, and he found it hard to believe that they had never talked about it once. The worst day of Zuko’s life had been the subject of gossip in the four nations even years after it happened.  
“You didn’t? Oh, I wish you could see it, Toph. It’s so badass,” Sokka began to gesture towards his face to demonstrate where Zuko’s scar was and stopped himself, remembering why she didn’t know about it in the first place. “It takes up like, half his face.”  
“What?! How has nobody mentioned this before? When’d you get it? What’s it from?” Toph leaned forward, a huge grin on her face. Zuko stared at the floor, not too excited about where this conversation was going.  
“It’s like, this huge burn, it starts right on his eye and covers the whole-” Sokka held up his hands in “L” shapes and studied them. “-the whole left side of his face. It’s totally crazy.”  
“Well, how’d he get it?” Toph asked, practically buzzing with excitement to hear Zuko’s exciting story.  
“I actually don’t know,” Sokka said, as if he was just considering this for the first time. “Hey, how did you-”  
“Guys!” Katara interrupted. “Can you not see that he doesn’t want to talk about it?”  
Zuko definitely did not want to talk about it. However, he couldn’t help but be shocked when faced with the fact that not one of them knew the story of how his scar came to be. It was a cautionary tale, a horror story for kids all across the fire nation. This is what happens when you don’t listen to your parents. You’ll be burned and banished. It was relieving, in a way, to know that he was facing some of the few people that actually didn’t know, that wouldn’t fear or resent him for it. It wouldn’t last, though, as he knew that, with the seed planted in their heads, his friends would not stop until they uncovered the story.  
“No, of course I can’t see, I’m blind, idiot! Sokka’s the one who was blabbering on about it anyway!”  
Zuko lifted his gaze from the floor up to his friends and noticed Sokka squirming in his seat. “Sorry, Zuko. I probably shouldn’t have-”  
“It’s fine.”  
The rest of the team fell into an uncomfortable silence.  
“So… can I see it?” Toph asked, smiling eagerly in Zuko’s direction.  
“I thought you were blind,” Zuko deadpanned.  
“No, I mean, can I feel it? Like with my hands?”  
Zuko cast a helpless look in Sokka’s direction. He certainly didn’t want Toph putting her hands all over his face, but he also didn’t want to deny her the opportunity of “seeing” what everyone else got to see every day. Sokka shrugged and cast Zuko a half-smile.  
“Uhh, sure.” He reluctantly agreed.  
Toph stood up and made her way across the room before she plopped onto the floor next to Zuko and placed her hand on his face gently. She traced her hand along his features for a bit before Zuko interrupted. “You know it’s on the other side, right?”  
“Ohhhhh. You coulda told me earlier, Sparky,” She shifted her hand to the other side of his face and immediately let out a low whistle as her fingers brushed across the burnt skin on his left cheek. “Damn. I thought Sokka was exaggerating. This is pretty crazy, Sparky. Does it still hurt?”  
Zuko shrugged. He knew the scar was healed, but nearly every night he still felt the pain his father had inflicted on him. Describing his recurring nightmares seemed like too long an explanation, so he responded with, “Sometimes.”  
“How’d you get it?” Toph asked quietly. She seemed a bit more cautious with the question this time around, having felt Zuko’s serious discomfort with the subject.  
Katara sighed from across the room. “Toph, we just established that he doesn’t want to-”  
“My dad.” The words slipped out of Zuko’s mouth before he could even think about them. All eyes moved to him as the room went completely silent, and he felt panic suddenly build up within him. ‘I don’t wanna talk about this I don’t wanna talk about this I don’t wanna talk about this.’ He had never told this story before. He never wanted to tell this story. He never wanted to relive it. He just wanted to forget it. Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, he looked to his side and noticed that Toph had linked an arm in his, probably sensing his racing heartbeat, and shot her a small smile of gratitude.  
“Wait- so- your dad? Did that?” Sokka looked sickened. ‘This is it, right here. This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell them, cause now they’re all gonna look at me different, they’re gonna look at me like some weakling who got beat up by his own father.’ “Why?”  
But, Zuko reminded himself, he wasn’t a weakling. His father was the weak one. His father was cruel, and evil, and Zuko did nothing wrong. ‘I did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong.’ “For fucking nothing. He burned half my face off for fucking nothing. I spoke out against one of his general’s plans and he challenged me to an Agni Kai. A firebending duel. I was fucking thirteen. And I told him I wouldn’t fight him because he was my father and I loved him, and he said-” Zuko gulped, abruptly stopping his tirade to take a deep breath. “He said, ‘You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.’ And then he just did it. It wasn’t even a fight. I knelt in front of him and told him I couldn’t fight him and he still did it. He still fucking did it. And I thought I deserved it too. Everyone thought I deserved it. And then he banished me, and said I could only come back if I found the avatar. All because I spoke out of turn fucking once.” Coming to the horrifying realization that there were tears streaming down his face, Zuko stopped and furiously wiped his eyes. “Fuck.” He blurted.  
His friends just stared at him.  
“I seriously wanna fucking kill your dad right now.” Sokka said, in the most serious tone Zuko had ever heard him use.  
“Me too,” Suki supplied.  
“That’s- that’s not fair. How could he do that to you?” Aang raged. “You’re his son! I don’t have a father but- I thought they were supposed to protect you! I thought they were supposed to love you!”  
“Me too,” Zuko mumbled, an attempt to lighten the mood with sarcasm that he realized just made him seem more upset.  
“So… that’s why you wanted to capture Aang so badly, huh? Why haven’t you told us this before?”  
Zuko glanced at Katara sheepishly. “I thought you guys knew. This is common knowledge in the fire nation. Everybody knows this story.”  
“We’re not from the fire nation,” Suki said bluntly.  
“Well I know that, but most-” Zuko stopped abruptly when Toph wrapped her arms around him from the side and rested her face on his shoulder. “Uhhh, what are you doing?”  
“Hugging you.” Her voice was muffled in his shirt.  
“Why?”  
Toph lifted her head so that her chin sat on Zuko’s shoulder blade. “I think you really deserve a hug, Sparky. You’ve been through some serious shit.”  
“Oh.” Zuko said. “Uhh, thanks, I guess.”  
“Are you gonna hug me back, or…?”  
“Oh, okay.”

It was the middle of the night, and Zuko sat outside with his knees hugged to his chest, staring into the distance. Sleepless nights were regular occurrences for him, and after the conversation he’d had earlier he thought it easier to sit outside rather than brave the nightmares that often came with thinking about his father.  
“Hey.”  
Flinching, Zuko prepared himself to jump up and defend himself from whatever was after them now.  
“Relax dude, it’s just me.” Zuko suddenly felt like an idiot for not recognizing Sokka’s voice as he took a seat next to him.  
“Oh. Hey.”  
“Nightmares?”  
“Not yet. Just… beating them to the punch.”  
“Oh,” Sokka replied. “Do you wanna… talk about it?”  
Resenting the sympathy in Sokka’s voice, Zuko stiffened. “No, I’m fine. I just said I didn’t have them tonight.”  
“Listen man, I don’t know what they taught you in the fire nation- well I do have a theory actually- but you don’t have to like, hide it around us. Everyone around here is dealing with their own fucked up shit, but I think yours might take the cake, so… seriously. Just talk to me.”  
Frustrated that his brain seemed to keep forgetting that these people were his friends, Zuko sagged. “Sorry. I guess it’s just my instinct to go on the defense.”  
“It’s cool, man. It seems like the fire nation did kinda fuck you up.”  
“The fire nation fucks everyone up.” Zuko replied bluntly. “They even found a way to fuck up people who aren’t fire nation.”  
Sokka laughed bitterly. “Yeah, I guess so. But seriously man, are you like, okay? I know I’ve said this a million times, but I mean it. You can talk to me.”  
Zuko smiled faintly. “I just- I get nightmares about it like, every night, and being here doesn’t help, and I just don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go to sleep right now.”  
Sokka nodded. “Yeah, that sucks. I’m sorry you have to go through all that, man. Really, I am.”  
“What are you sorry for? You didn’t do it.”  
“I know I didn’t, but… well, I don’t think your dad’s apologizing anytime soon.”  
Zuko laughed. “Thanks, Sokka. Seriously.”  
“Anytime.” Sokka offered Zuko a bag. “Fire flakes?”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!! so this is my first fic, i don’t think it’s very good but hopefully in time i’ll get better. i’m really nervous about posting this so please comment and leave kudos if you enjoy. thanks so much!!


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